Don't Mess with Mom

Last night I received an email from Mom. She and Dad were gardening, refilling their planters with new soil. While carrying one of the pots from the front yard to the back, she tripped over a downspout and fell face-first into a potentilla bush. In her words,

One of the branches from the bush was driven into my head from the force of the fall. I got up and pulled the branch out of my skull (it took quite a tug to get it out). Your dad helped me clean up all the blood that was streaming down my face, and pulled the few remaining twigs from my scalp. I am grateful that there were no passers-by to witness this.

I am fine and none the worse for wear.

I was pretty upset when I read this and phoned Mom and Dad immediately, but Mom was laughing about it. She didn't even bother to go to the hospital. "We just poured peroxide on it," she said. (Thank goodness Mom had a tetanus shot recently.)

I should have remembered that Mom kicked cancer's ass last year and that she's never been much bothered by blood and gore. In fact, about fifteen years ago Mom happened by while I was watching Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter. She paused to reflect during the scene in which one of Jesse's buddies is slowly dying of a gunshot wound.

"That's a sucking chest wound," Mom commented. "There should be pink foam coming out."

Manitoba farm girls are a hardy breed.